Alayna Prowley says she wants her music to sound like red wine on a rainy evening and coffee in bed on a Sunday morning. Somehow, her smooth and at times heart-wrenching EP does exactly that. It’s so well-crafted and her lyricism is so evocative that at times your mind wanders down autumn leaf covered pavements in New York City too.
What’s really special about this five-track EP is that she already had it recorded but Chad Hillard of 20XX Entertainment asked her if she wanted to reproduce it but this time with world-class producers. Those producers came with some massive writing credits, including ST!NT who has worked with Demi Lovato, Carly Rae Jepson and Santigold.
Another big name she has worked with on the EP was Finneas O’Connell, Billie Eilish’s brother. She wrote the song Between Dusk and Dawn with him. The result is an emotionally raw ballad, unique to Finneas’s heart-wrenching themes in his own music.
Stand out tracks are all of them but in particular, Bliss. It’s in the naivety and sweetness of what she’s singing; “And I know it’s far too forward, to say I love you, And I know it’s far too soon, to say I’ll miss you”.
It’s also in the way that every breath is captured between sentences, making it seem so authentic.
Falling Autumn is another a stand out track, maybe because seeing it performed live at the Going Global Music Summit was the most relaxed a crowd has ever been or maybe it’s because the lyricism gets you right in the pit of your stomach and makes you ache for lovers been and gone.
As for Sweet Soul, Alayna describes it exactly how it sounds, like letting all your worries and anxieties go, “I was telling myself to chill out and that I needed my sweeter younger soul to calm me down as well.”
Now the EP is out she has slowly been releasing her re-worked EP at the hands of composer magician, Godfrey De Grut. Recorded live and with a full band for the first time ever at Roundhead in Auckland.
“I never pictured my music with strings but hearing it now I am like, oh my gosh, I need to take them with me. My favourite thing to hear is acoustic versions of songs so this was a real big passion project of mine so I want to do more stripped down stuff, it’s an absolute favourite.”
